Garrus

With the tools and supplies Harrot was able to acquire while on the Destiny Ascension, Garrus had been able to begin his arm's repair while in transit to Rannoch. Working intently during that time, he is now close to completion and works at the desk in his and his family's cabin, soldering the delicate wiring.

"Will you be ready for our drop?" His wife asks as she gently bounces Cassia on her hip and caresses Damocles' head as he sleeps on the bed before coming to look over Garrus' shoulder. He looks back to her with a raised brow in question and she merely shrugs with a smile. "I'm trying to figure out what you're doing."

"And what did you find out?" He asks with a chuckle, knowing full well her experience on anything tech related. There is a reason she has everyone else do anything dealing with tech on their missions, after all.

"No fucking clue," she answers with a snort, leaving over to kiss his fringe. "Fixing shit is what I have you around for." She looks to their daughter. "Isn't that right, my little princess?"

Their daughter chirps happily and grins at the attention, her tiny hands reaching out for mommy. The sight makes Garrus purr tenderly as he smiles to his mate. Yes, they made this wonderful beauty in the universe and her equally amazing brother. There is nothing else in the galaxy that could bring the joy and peace he feels than his wife and their children.

A high pitched cheer comes from Cassia and he chuckles, setting the soldering iron down. Turning to Jane, he cups the back of her thigh and pulls her close to shift his hand to her rear, rumbling deep in his chest.

"Oh?" Jane smirks and chuckles huskily. "i didn't know having a babbling baby on my hip makes you so hot under the plates."

"You make me 'hot under the plates' no matter what you do or how you look," he corrects with a slight squeeze. "Holding my child only makes you all the more sexy."

Her brow lifts and lips quirk as their oblivious daughter grips the red haired braid and starts to mouth it. Leaning down, Jane presses her forehead to Garrus' and he purrs, closing his eyes at the warm feeling her touch brings. When she shifts aside, he opens his eyes and leans over to nuzzle their daughter's forehead.

"I should get the babies dressed," Jane says as she straightens up and gently pulls her hair from their child's mouth, offering her waggling fingers as entertainment instead. "We should stop bothering daddy and let him get his arm, shouldn't we?"

"Daddy is perfectly fine with one arm," he lies with a smirk and spins his chair. "It's mommy who can't stand me not changing diapers."

She snorts from the direction of the bed. "Damn right. You feed them whatever makes their shit stink, you help clean it." When Cassia tries to make an attempt at a word - and only ending up with a jumble of syllables - Jane's warm hum of encouragement reaches his ears. "That's right. You and your brother are better weapons of mass destruction than the Reapers."

"Think we could market them off as the most dangerous twins in the galaxy? That has to grant us some benefits. Maybe a nice retirement plan?" At her snort, Garrus flicks his mandibles in amusement - a gesture only seen by his reflection in the metal of his prosthetic. "You're right. The Council would sooner find way to a new galaxy than give us at least some vacation time. Forget retirement."

"You're right. That's way too much to ask of them." He chuckles as she comes to him and kisses the top of his fringe, her obviously empty hands rubbing his shoulders.

Purring, he lets his eyes close for a moment as he relaxes in her hands. Her nimble fingers make him feel like nothing but jelly, plates soft and malleable like when he was a child and in a molt. Only she can make him feel so at ease.

"Garrus? Shepard?" Aelia's voice speaks through the intercom, waking Damocles by the sound of his confused mumble of senseless sounds that count as his attempt to form words. "Sorry to bother you, but you wanted to know when we're an hour and a half out."

"Rannoch, here we come," Jane says with a huff of exasperation. Garrus knows full well that dealing with another geth problem was the last thing on her list - on both of their lists - but, when the galaxy calls with problems, the two of them are apparently the only ones capable of solving them.

"Jane," he pleads with a soft rumble. "Try to think of this as a small vacation?"

She snorts and shifts Cassia on one hip, freeing her hand to gently pull a waking Damocles up against her side. "Suits us, right? I always considered our fight on Virmire as the honeymoon out we never took."

"Funny. I thought it was perfect. You, me, and plenty of explosions." He chuckles at her unamused 'uh huh' and eye roll. "I even lose sleep thinking of how I'll ever do better than that on our next anniversary."

"Smart ass." He feels her lean over and kiss his fringe. "I'm heading downstairs to feed the kids. Maybe rope Vega or Sidonis into helping me. Oh! Arcanus! Even better!"

Chuckling, he lifts his head to take a real kiss from her. "Good luck with that one."

His attention going back to his repairs, he hears her snort and say something softly to their children. Whatever it is, it's obviously very entertaining as she gets a babbled response from Damocles and chirp from Cassia, but Jane doesn't let Garrus in on the obvious joke - on his own expense, if he truly wants to say he knows his wife. Instead, she heads out of the Cabin with babies in hand.

He does have to admit that the silence gives him the chance to focus entirely on his work. Not that the task is all that difficult to begin with, nor that his family is too loud or obnoxious to concentrate, just that he wishes he could be doing something more entertaining than working on tech. He has a way of letting himself get distracted by Jane and his twins and, in a perfect galaxy, that wouldn't be a problem, but their luck is nothing close to perfect.

Still, they have a skill of making due with what they are given, and that's why he steals every chance at normalcy with them at the cost of his own work.

Time flies while he works, Jane returning with two content infants in hand just as he is testing the responses of his arm's fingers with a small electrical pulse on the circuits. If this doesn't work and they do not respond, then the arm will be useless when he puts it back on. He's already checked all other responses - sensory and cautionary responses, maneuverability, and input response from shoulder to wrist - while saving the most sensitive for last.

"How's it coming?" Jane steps down the steps, twin sets of hands gripping onto her shirt, Damocles even going so far as to chew on a button on her shoulder. "All fixed and ready for a fight?" She asks with a smirk and raises a brow, making him chuckle.

"At least you have confidence enough not to ask me if I've completely ruined it."

She shrugs and comes to watch over his shoulder. "I know better. Hell, I remember who was responsible for giving the Normandy the best fucking set of really huge, really powerful"- she pauses and smiles innocently -"guns." When he snorts, knowing full well where she was going, she gasps in mock hurt. If she could grip her chest in hurt, she would, but she'll just have to do with her sad lip tremble.

"You don't fool me," he says with an exasperated mandible flick, playing along. "We all know you only want me for my Thanix cannon."

He hears a hum of approval before feeling her kiss on his fringe. "You know it."

Turning his attention back to his work, he hears her talk soothingly to the twins as she heads back up the stairs - baby blanket Damocles had been sleeping with earlier in hand - and to the nursery. Everyone can say what they want about his mate, but she has proven to be a great mother despite the destruction she's brought so many who dare cross her. Now, if only we can convince our children not to take after their mother in terms of vocabulary. Or, if they have to, not make it their first words?

The thought of two tiny children with the vocabulary of their mother makes him chuckle, if a bit nervously. Oh, how the universe would fall to its feet.

Now, to test his hours long work on this damn arm. Before soldering the new wiring together, he needs to make sure the current is flowing- that there is no damage within the hand itself- and he really hopes he won't have to go to Rannoch missing an arm due to time constraints. It's not that the tech is too advanced, too far out of the ordinary from the work he had done on his visor and the like, but the weight on getting it right makes it so much more nerve wracking.

With a touch of two very vital wires - wires that mean functionality below the wrist or a limp hand - Garrus sighs in relief with he sees the hand jerk slightly. It's not much, but it's enough to boost his confidence on finish this time consuming repair. At least, he figures, it's good that the arm is so complex and its design so complicated because it makes it harder to break, rot, or malfunction. It will take a lot to damage it to this point again, and that's not something that Garrus plans on doing. Won't be falling off any more cliffs, that's for sure.

One second of soldering and the two wires are secured, creating the connection between arm and hand. All his needs is to test the fingers and their reaction time before he can finally reattach an arm that he's actually come to feel naked without when walking through the ship. Just as he learned to get used to armor like a second set of plates, he has grown to think of the prosthetic as no different from his flesh and blood arm on the other side. Even if he tends to remove it while sleeping or relaxing in the Loft, it's the fact that he can that means more than not having the choice.

Closing the forearm panel and making sure it hisses, then clicks into place, Garrus rolls the prosthetic and reaches for the panel situation on the top of the hand. Said panels have all been hidden in a very ingenious manner within the design of having the distinct look of plates and hide in between. Where it merely looks like the plate on the top of his hand, it is actually a door to a compartment of wiring, hydraulics, and sensors that control and make up his hand. Functionality and familiarity.

The wiring beneath the hand's panel don't look damaged at all upon first inspection, but he knows that only a real test of its electrical responses will tell if it's truly unaffected by the fall. He reaches up to the shoulder port, having taken it apart to directly manipulate the current that would usually be under the control of his own body and mind when the arm is in place. Feeling around for the wiring for his fingers isn't exactly easy without looking, so he leans over and finds them in the form of different colored wires with a different pattern of striping on them than wires for the rest of his arm's electronics.

First is the thumb as he touches the main control junction - that which will lock into his shoulder - with the blue wire with three tight stripes ended by a space before the pattern repeats. Touching them together gets an immediate reaction as the thumb moves, curling when the wires are touching and relaxing when apart. Next is the forefinger, which moves in much the same way as it curls against the table and relaxes, and, finally, he tests his last finger. At its reaction, he lets loose a proud rumble from his throat.

Were he not so humble, he'd perhaps use this very arm to pat himself on the back at the success. Hell, he thinks he deserves it anyways. Finding the secret compartments and repairing the damage with very few tools and, of those he had, ones that could have been higher quality wasn't easy. He won't in the end. Jane says his ego is big enough to have its own gravity as it is. Best not to give her more ammunition.

Garrus begins to tuck the wires gently back into the shoulder and upper arm of the prosthetic just as he hears Jane leaving the nursery. "Looks like you have to hold my hand now," he says with a smile as he glances her way. "Now I don't have to chose between you or holding a weapon."

"Yeah?" Her happiness is youthful as she hurries to his side to watch him secure the port back into place, waiting for them both to hear the loud hiss of suction and it locking into place. "That's fucking awesome." Leaning over the back of his chair with arms draped over his shoulders, she kisses his cheek and he purrs in response as she says, "I was going to hold your hand whether you liked it or not, only now I don't have to fight you to put the weapon down."

He chuckles and nuzzles her cheek with his as he starts to put the tools within the leather wrap they came in. "Now I think I'd rather take my sniper or some other large weapon."

Snorting, she playfully pushes up and off him. "You won't hold my hand?" She holds a hand to her chest with a gasp of mock shock. "What will Tali think?"

"She already knows I use big guns."

Jane smirks and nods, looks off as if in thought. "Mmm… you definitely do."

He snorts and takes his arm, lining it up and pushing it into place. Testing his fingers and arm movement, he says, "I should have known that would lead to reference to my penis."

"When doesn't it?" Jane chuckles at his quizzical brow plate raise. "Okay, okay. Maybe not all the time, but damn close."

She moves to grab the other half of his armor off the lounge's table and he takes the chance to pop his back, sitting all morning to lean over his work making it ache. He considers the fact that having a slight ache is better than the pain from the fall or the annoyance of the damn back brace.

"I've been thinking," his wife says as she first attaches the separate sleeve for his undersuit. "If we can figure out what the hell is wrong with the geth, maybe we can use it for EDI. Well, not me, but maybe the quarians and Rym can work together." She huffs a laugh. "Hell, it would be nice to have Tali on board again, but I doubt she'd give up her chance to be on land after barely getting her homeworld back."

"You're probably right about that," he agrees as he tugs the glove on and adjusts the fingers to a good fit. Next is his gauntlet while Jane snaps on his upper arm guard. "Maybe whatever the geth have left of their coding can be combined with whatever Rym has scraped together of EDI. It would benefit both." She nods and he sighs, closing his eyes at the thought that, of course, comes unbidden. "Unless EDI can't come out of this completely the same…"

Jane frowns, stopping midway through locking in his shoulder armor. "Fuck… you're right." Her hands slide off his armor, defeated. "I could have been the one to, in essence, kill her. Sure, we can replace what's lost, but if she's not the same EDI?" Shrugging, she looks to the floor. "Then she's just another one of the crew we lost. Only, this time, I was the one to press the button."

"Hey," he chides softly, lifting her chin with his knuckle. "We all knew the cost. She was no different and we both know she would never have hesitated if she could have pressed that button herself." His hand shifts to cup her cheek. "She's not gone, yet. Have faith."

"You're asking me to have faith?" She scoffs. "That's a tall order."

"Perhaps," he replies with a purr and presses his forehead to hers. "But I know you never let a good challenge pass you by." That gets a lighter reaction as she rolls her eyes while pressing back. "Now, let's get on Rannoch and see how far along Tali is on her new home."

Rolling his shoulder, testing the weight of his reinstalled arm, he follows his wife as she picks up her weapons on the pass by them sitting on the Lounge table. He takes a moment to lock in his own weapons onto his armor before stopping at the nursery door as she waits for him further ahead, a knowing smile on her lips.

"Go ahead," she says softly with a jerk of her head towards the lift. "I'll hold the door."

"I won't be long," Garrus responds with a warm rumble, laying his hand on the console command and stepping in quietly. He's missed out on spending the morning with them thanks to his damn arm repairs, so he sees nothing that can keep him from giving a parting goodbye before he and Jane spend however long down on Rannoch trying to make sense of the geth situation.

The twins are bundled up in their cribs, the room lit by a dim glow from the darkened shelving. He can tell from the sounds of their rhythmically purring vocals that they teeter on the edge of the wakefulness and sleep, and he walks lightly towards them so as not to wake them completely.

"Hey, little one," he whispers with a rumbling breath to his daughter, smiling at her beautiful eyes as she looks up to him and stretches out a hand. "Try to get some sleep, my princess." Taking her tiny digits in his palm, he caresses the top of her knuckles with his thumb. "Mommy and daddy will only be gone a short time."

With a lean down, he nuzzles her forehead and leaves her to sleep without the stimulus of his presence to keep her awake. Next, he moves to his son's crib, knowing full well by the kicking shadow that it'll take more than a show of affection to get Damocles to sleep.

"Little man," Garrus says with a chuckle, tickling both feet with a thumb as he grabs and attempts to still them. His son giggles and grins happily before giving his feet a hard buck out of playful spite, but Garrus holds them steady. "You should be at least trying to sleep." That only gets a babble of nonsense. "Uh-huh. Likely reason," he retorts playfully with a quick nuzzle to Damocles' head. "Sleep up and you can daddy can play when we get back. Would you like that?" No response beyond a purring chirp. Rumbling low and deep, both in tender care and urging to sleep, Garrus caresses his son's head as he whispers, "Sleep well, my son."

Any more interaction with the two will only wake them further, he knows. So it's with great reluctance that he finally steps out and returns to his wife's side as she holds the elevator door. She gives him a knowing smile and closes the gap between them as the lift slowly begins its trek down to the CIC, her hand taking his just as she 'threatened' to do. "They fall asleep yet?"

He snorts. "Would you believe me if I said 'yes'?"

"Of course not," she answers with a chuckle. "I know them all too well."

He chuckles softly and nods in agreement as they ride in a comfortable silence, hand in hand. As the lift slows to a stop and opens, they give Traynor a nod as they pass in both greeting and assurance of their leaving the ship and she smiles in return. Garrus would be lying if the majority of her happiness at their leaving stems from the fact that she can now log into the nursery monitoring system and keep an eye out for the time she can go upstairs and play with the twins. While it's nice to have so many around willing and wanting to pick up twin duties when he and Jane are dragged from their own children, it's sometimes as if the two of them are in a ship full of children all wanting and waiting to play with the infant twins onboard.

"Would you look at you," Joker says as they approach, swinging in his chair with a blatant look up and down Garrus and teasing grin. "Looks like the cripple is back to action. And with both arms."

As Jane taps the airlock command, she snorts. Smirking wide, she nudges his side in view of Joker to mock whisper without actually lowering her voice. "Too bad he doesn't know what we were doing to keep you in that brace longer. And just all the things you don't need two hands for."

"You better not have gotten anything on that back brace!" The pilot calls at their backs as they step into the airlock chamber, making Jane laugh and Garrus chuckle. "You might as well have thrown it out!"

"For a guy that watches porn at his station, that man sure has delicate sensibilities."

He snorts at his wife and cups her chin, lifting her head up to nuzzle her temple. "That's because he doesn't personally know those that he's watching."

Her eyes closed, she tilts her head in his touch to press a soft kiss to his chin. "We should trick him. Maybe film a porno with masks on or something and then bam, it's us."

Chuckling, he shakes his head. "Not sure I like the thought of so many having the chance to see you as only I get to." He stops and thinks about the facts, humming as he adjusts his statement. "And that doesn't count changing into armor or the few times people walk in on us."

Her chuckles make his mandibles flick in amusement as she opens her emerald eyes and lifts a brow. "You mean you're okay with those close to us seeing me naked as the day I was born, but not the possibility of strangers? Since when?" At his rumble of question, she snorts and turns to him with a cocked hip. "You mean you don't remember the times we have sex out in public? Me thinks you do want people to have the chance to see."

The doors are close to opening and, as much as he really wants everyone on Rannoch to be forever cursed with the mental image of the two of them rutting like teenagers on any available surface, he flicks his mandibles with an exaggerated sigh. "That's different-"

"How?"

"Because…" Damn, he didn't know today would turn into a trivia on sex adventures. How can he explain why some things are okay to his possessive brain but others not? "Because the thrill of 'accidental exposure' comes with the possibility of getting to defend my mate's honor?"

There is a long silence as she narrows her eyes in suspicion at that, contemplating his best answer, before she starts to laugh. "Wait, wait, wait," she says with a grin, waving her hand to stop him from interrupting. "Let me see if I get this straight. You like doing it in public because, if someone catches us, you get the chance to beat the shit out of someone?"

"Maybe?" He shrugs. "I don't know." Humming at her laughter, he takes her hand as she moves to step out of the opening airlock. "But I think it has more to do with the fact that I can lay claim and defend it too," he tries to better explain, feeling that fits more with what his little primal brain wants in those times.

Her chuckles are warm as she nods in understanding and takes his hand. "In that case, we should definitely have public sex with the possibility of getting caught more often. I think that'd be fun to watch."

"That's not my intention," he deadpans as she laughs and he follows her out and into the hot, crisp heat of Rannoch. He merely gets a soft huff of a laugh in response as she turns her attention out and over rocky outcroppings that are peppered with the growing footprints of the quarians' reclamation of this land.